Rice Science ›› 2025, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (3): 380-399.DOI: 10.1016/j.rsci.2025.03.002

• Research Papers • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Global Transcriptome Analysis of Rice Seedlings in Response to Extracellular ATP

Chaemyeong Lim1,#, Sae Hyun Lee1,#, Haeun Lee1, So-Yon Park2, Kiyoon Kang3, Hyeryung Yoon1, Tae-Jin Yang1, Gary Stacey2, Nam-Chon Paek1(), Sung-Hwan Cho1()   

  1. 1Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Bioresources, Plant Genomics and Breeding Institute, Research Institute of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, Korea
    2Division of Plant Science and Technology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
    3Division of Life Sciences, Incheon National University, Incheon 22012, Korea
  • Received:2024-10-25 Accepted:2024-12-31 Online:2025-05-28 Published:2025-06-16
  • Contact: Nam-Chon Paek (ncpaek@snu.ac.kr);Sung-Hwan Cho (choj1010@snu.ac.kr)
  • About author:First author contact:These authors contributed equally to this work

Abstract:

Herbivorous insects and pathogens cause severe damage to rice tissues, affecting yield and grain quality. Damaged cells trigger downstream defense responses through various signals. Extracellular ATP (eATP), a signaling molecule released during mechanical cell damage, is considered a constitutive damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP), which is crucial for initiating plant defense responses. Thus, understanding how rice plants cope with DAMPs such as eATP is essential. Here, we found that exogenous ATP affected rice growth and development, cell wall composition, chloroplast development, and cell death. Subsequent global transcriptome analysis revealed that several pathways were involved in the eATP response, including genes related to cell surface receptors, cell wall organization, chlorophyll biosynthesis, heat and temperature stimulation, epigenetic regulation, and reactive oxygen species metabolism. Cell surface receptors, including members of the lectin receptor-like kinases (LecRKs), were found to participate in the eATP response. We further investigated ATP-induced genes in T-DNA activation mutants of OsLecRKs, demonstrating their involvement in eATP signaling in rice. This study confirms a DAMP-mediated transcriptional response in plants and provides novel candidates for advancing resistant rice breeding against insect herbivores and pathogens.

Key words: extracellular ATP, damage-associated molecular pattern, RNA-sequencing, transcriptome analysis, rice